


John's Bureau of Balance

by DaniMotherFreakingGlitter



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, John shows EMOTIONS??!?, Roleswap, Roleswap AU, TAZSWIIIIIIITCH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 07:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14279745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaniMotherFreakingGlitter/pseuds/DaniMotherFreakingGlitter
Summary: John goes on after he does something important. He deals with the consequences. They're small in comparison anyway. It's only his family.





	John's Bureau of Balance

It’s so strange how quickly everything can turn on its head. You can be in love with someone for so long only to drift apart in a manner of weeks. You could know someone as a friend your entire life only to become enemies due to one disagreement.

You could be apart of a family for a hundred years only to lose all of them because you fed the chronicle of your journey to a memory-eating jellyfish.

After everyone else was...gone, John got to work in finding them all homes. Julia he took to Raven’s Roost, a place with a very famous woodworking shop called the Hammer and Tongs. John knew that if there was any place that Julia could make a name for herself and be truly happy, it’d be in a place where she can focus on her craft, the same one she’s been practicing for 53 years. Her home was the easiest to find, but of course John didn’t just dump her in Raven’s Roost all alone, he made sure that she had a good place to stay, a lovely elderly couple had taken her in after he explained her situation, a man named Steven Waxman and his wife, Abigail, who actually shared some relation to Julia despite being from different Planar Systems.

Davenport, John had no trouble introducing to the group of gnomes that shared his name. They lived on a beach and it was honestly so perfect because Davenport had been so happy on the beach planet. He had almost been as happy as he was when he talked about home. That thought made John sad, that Davenport would never be exactly as happy as he once was, but as long as he got close, John would be satisfied. It’s not like Davenport would remember being happier somewhere else, right? John would go and check up on his friend, the father figure of the group, make sure he was content and relaxed. It made John feel better on bad days to see Davenport relaxing in the sand with the water coming up and washing over his legs.

Lup...what was he supposed to do with Lup? What one place could possibly be good enough for Lup? No, Lup deserved to be known by all, deserved to be seen. She deserved fame and fortune and people to see what all she could do, and what she could do well was cook and set fires. Luckily, he was able to find her a stagecoach, and a supplier, and an audience, and Fire it Up with Lup was off. He loved to watch any performance he could get to, but he never let himself take a sample, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he ate her cooking after what he had done to her. Nevertheless, she went from Lup, the scientist, to Lup from T.V. And she was loved, just like John knew she should be.

Kravitz was gone, disappeared without a trace. But John knew that couldn’t possibly last, because Kravitz was a lich and John learned that Fischer’s ichor allowed one to remember everything Fischer consumed, and that Fischer’s affects didn’t work on the dead, or liches. John would have to tiptoe around Kravitz, just in case.

And Taako, Gods, he was just...gone. John looked whenever he could, but he was nowhere to be found. It killed John to know that Taako was somewhere in this world all alone, without his sister, without his love. Imagining how Kravitz and Lup would feel if they knew, that was what drove John to keep searching when he could, the last bit of hope in his life, that one day he would find Taako and at least that much in his life would be okay again.

After settling all of the rest into their own lives, John wondered what to do. Surely he couldn’t have left Merle on his own, not in his state. Merle and John hadn’t really been the closest in their little family, that title was reserved for Kravitz and Taako, but they did talk. They were acquaintances. It was because of Merle that John was able to do the things he did. Merle was the one who actually wrote everything down in a journal he had crafted himself early on in the cycles. It was only too easy to “borrow.” Sadly, however, it was more of a personal diary than a chronicle, and much of Merle’s identity was erased along with the memories of their journey. Now all he could say was his name, “Merle Hitower Highchurch,” over and over, never in the correct order, in a fearful frenzy. John was filled with guilt and despair when he found Merle, tucked into a ball, holding his head in his hands as he muttered “Hightower..High..Hi..Church..”

John placed a hand on Merle’s shoulder, and Merle’s head snapped upward, staring at John with tears threatening to spill. “Oh, Merle.” he muttered. “Hi...Hightower.” Merle said, and that seemed to be the part of his name he was saying the most, the one part he could remember the best. John wondered why that was for a moment before realizing. The book. The diary he fed to Fischer.

Merle had written his name, “Merle Highchurch,” on it. And John had forgotten to mark it out. His middle name was the only part of his name he had left. And it was all John’s fault.

He guided Merle to standing. “Let’s go, Merle. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..   
John doesn’t remember when he started calling Merle “Hightower” instead of “Merle.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..   
John ran to his quarters as soon as the alarm sounded. He was both surprised and relieved to see Lup, Davenport and…Kravitz?! June was there too, happily cooing at the baby Voidfish. She didn’t seem to be affected at all by the memories that had been fed to the baby. It made sense: June didn’t have any memories affected by this Voidfish. The guards in the room all had weapons at the ready, and they nearly began to attack Kravitz when he glared at John and began sprinting angrily towards him. However, Hightower was there to stop him, and they began to scuffle, and it would have been funny to watch if everything wasn’t so wrong. One of the guards pulled Kravitz away and put him back with the rest. His glare at John did not weaken. John let this go for now as he walked over to his chessboard. 

He picked up the Black King, and he held a hand out for the orb containing the Bell. As one of the closer guards passed it to him, he spared a glance at his friends. They all had looks of realization on their face as they eyed the chess piece. And then, Davenport and Lup put their head in their hands as though they were in pain. John raised an eyebrow.  
“You inoculated yourselves?” John asked calmly. Lup gave no verbal reply, just a curt nod.

“Yeah basically.” Davenport groaned. John ran a hand through his hair, his mind beginning to panic.

“No, no, no, it’s too much. It’s way too much, there’s no way you’ll be able to remember something so specific, it’ll kill you! Why would you do that?!” he cried, angry and scared for his family.

“We’re stupid?” Lup shrugged. Davenport snickered. John looked to Kravitz, but Kravitz didn’t seem to be having any problem. Of course. The lich thing. He probably is used to remembering all of this at once.

“Drink.” John whipped his head around at Kravitz again.

“What?” he asked, but Kravitz brushed him off.

“John, you have to help them. You have to. Without you, they’ll die. They’re not coming back this time, John. They can’t do it alone, and you owe them this.” Kravitz said. John could see that Kravitz was about to cry. John bit his lip as he weighed the options, looking at his family in pain.

“Okay. Okay okay. Just listen and follow along. Don’t spend too much time thinking about anything, don’t think ahead, or it’s not going to go well, and everything I’m about to say is very important. Okay. So, Lup, Davenport, Kravitz, there were seven of us. The seven of us are all from another world, or reality, or whatever we called it back then. We were-are the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, or the IPRE. We were a team of scientists who were sent to explore beyond our planar system in our ship. Sadly, we were...tailed. A terrible force followed us, we called it the Silence. As for the relics, we made them to try and stop the Silence from finding us through the Light. I had another plan though...but you all tried to change my mind, and in the end you vetoed my suggestion. But I knew I was right. So I...made you forget.”

“I made everyone forget when I fed the record of our journey to the Voidfish. When nobody remembered, I made it to where I could hunt for the Relics myself. Sadly, I failed doing it alone, I nearly died in that World of Hellevators, so I had to create the Bureau, a group of people who could aide me in finding them. But the thrall was always too great for everyone who tried. Everyone except the people who made them. Me. You. And when the Voidfish had a baby, that was when I could bring you in. I had rewrote the journal I had fed the Voidfish, and so I fed the baby parts that would let you know about the relics, but not that you created them. And then you found me. Just like we always have, we came back together as if by fate. Well, okay, I’m being a bit poetic here. I put the events that led you to me in motion. Your employment with Delilah? That was me. I had to make up a story about Rogue Wizards and Red Robes and Evil Liches. Barely any of that is true.”   
“But with these,” John showed them the chess piece and the orb holding the bell, “I can put the Light back together and finish my plan. I’ll put an end the Silence and I’ll make this world home for all of us.” John stopped talking suddenly, eyes widening. “All of us...but Taako.” he finished sadly, breaking eye contact with the three of them. Lup and Kravitz gasped at hearing his name, and the sound made John flinch. “Lup, Kravitz, I’m sorry. I tried to find him, I swear I did, but I couldn’t. There was nothing I could do.” He looked back to Lup, and wasn’t surprised to see her eyes beginning to brim with tears. He had to change the subject. His eyes turned to High...Merle, to Merle, and found his subject to change.

“So that’s six of us. Davenport, Me, Julia, Kravitz, Lup, Taako, and of course, the Seventh. Our healer. Our holy voice.” John smiled before sighing sadly. “When I fed the information to the Voidfish, I did everything I could to let you keep your names. But I, if you can believe it, made a mistake. You see, the journal I fed to the Voidfish...wasn’t actually mine to give. And when I went through it to make sure nothing you truly needed was being erased, I forgot to notice he wrote his first and last name on the front cover, leaving his middle name as his only identity.” He was shocked into silence when a loud clatter rang throughout the roo,. Everyone turned to look at Merle, who had dropped the tray holding their payment and tokens. He was holding a small flask, and wiping his mouth, and he looked more than a little pissed.

“John, what the hell did you do?!” Merle cried just before the door opened. Julia, Avi, Johann and the robot C4M stepped into the room and John gasped to see Julia alive. He also gasped to see the swarms of Silence beings trying to fight their way inside. Massive columns of snowflake obsidian were running from ground to sky. The Silence was here and nothing could stop them. It was the end of this world. It was the end of the world. Again.


End file.
